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AT&T, DirecTV announce $48 billion merger
By Cecilia Kang, Sunday, May 18, 5:16 PM E-mail the writer
AT&T and DirecTV on Sunday announced an approximately $48 billion merger that would create a new telecom and television behemoth to rival cable firms — while raising fresh concerns over competition and options for consumers.
AT&T would gain DirecTV’s 20 million U.S. subscribers, a company with strong cash flows and an ability to fatten its bundle of offerings. The combined firm would be able to offer phone, high-speed Internet and paid television subscriptions to more customers — packages only cable firms such as Comcast have been able to sell.
It is the latest mega-merger to be announced this year in a dramatically shifting telecommunications industry. The titans of the industry have recently rushed to bulk up — in overall size and in diversity of service offerings — as their legacy phone and television businesses fray and consumers turn to the Internet for communications and entertainment.
The deals, which must be approved by federal regulators, have prompted new concern that consumers could be left with fewer options and even higher prices after years of creeping increases in monthly bills. Last year, U.S. cable television prices increased 5.1 percent to an average $64, triple the rate of inflation, according to a government report.
“The industry needs more competition, not more mergers,” said John Bergmayer, a senior staff attorney at Public Knowledge, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. “We’ll have to analyze this one carefully for potential harms both to the video programming and the wireless markets.”
After a failed attempt three years ago at buying wireless provider T-Mobile, AT&T had been searching for alternative acquisitions. But its choices were limited, with regulators expressing great concern that the wireless and high-speed-Internet markets were not competitive enough.
The Dallas-based company said it would gain broad strategic benefits from buying the nation’s second-largest paid-television provider. The phone giant would have greater power with television programmers to bring down licensing costs. And as the nation’s second-largest wireless carrier, it could use its new prominence in the television industry to bring videos to its mobile customers. El Segundo, Calif.-based DirecTV has an exclusive contracts with programmers, including NFL Sunday Ticket, which allows football fans to watch their favorite teams even if they live outside the local television markets serving the teams.
Originally Posted by htismaqe:
Retaining competent employees is a problem across the tech industry.
A big part of navigating these massive tech companies is institutional knowledge and a large part of competence comes from having that experience.
Unfortunately, that means older employees with tenure and the resulting pay scale.
Most tech companies are constantly looking to jettison experience and bring in fresh faces. Younger is cheaper.
I work for a solutions provider so I talk to local and corporate LEC’s. This is pretty spot on unfortunately.
They do this shit all the time. In fact AT&T has made a change to their HR guidelines this year. If you are retirement eligible you have to leave by 12/31 this year or you won’t get retirement benefits. In other words you won’t get health insurance for the rest of your life if you’re on the books 1/1/22 due to a deal they made with their insurance provider to save money.
I know a lot of folks who are depressed and furious bc they were 1-3 years from retirement and have now lost it [Reply]
Originally Posted by RunKC:
I work for a solutions provider so I talk to local and corporate LEC’s. This is pretty spot on unfortunately.
They do this shit all the time. In fact AT&T has made a change to their HR guidelines this year. If you are retirement eligible you have to leave by 12/31 this year or you won’t get retirement benefits. In other words you won’t get health insurance for the rest of your life if you’re on the books 1/1/22 due to a deal they made with their insurance provider to save money.
I know a lot of folks who are depressed and furious bc they were 1-3 years from retirement and have now lost it
My company went through a voluntary separation a while back (I wasn't allowed to take it) with a very lucrative severance package. I know several people with more the 20 years that opted to stay and ended up getting laid off a year later with a package HALF the size of the one they could have opted into. [Reply]
Originally Posted by htismaqe:
It's because Iowa has more independent telephone companies than any state other than North Carolina. I used to work for Iowa Network Services equal access (25 years ago now). :-)
I worked in Union, IA. The phone company there ran fiber to BCLUW schools free of charge and was working to get it to homes. That was 20 years ago.
Landus co-ops allowed kids to hop on to their wifi if it was available.
My dad was an REC board for Calhoun County, IA. There were working on getting internet through electrical lines but never got it done. I hope with this they are trying it again. [Reply]
Originally Posted by displacedinMN:
I worked in Union, IA. The phone company there ran fiber to BCLUW schools free of charge and was working to get it to homes. That was 20 years ago.
Landus co-ops allowed kids to hop on to their wifi if it was available.
My dad was an REC board for Calhoun County, IA. There were working on getting internet through electrical lines but never got it done. I hope with this they are trying it again.
I actually installed some equipment in Union in the late 90's. Is it still Heart of Iowa telco? [Reply]
Originally Posted by oldman:
For his mismanagement, he left with millions in the bank and a $274K per month pension.
And then they hired him on as a “consultant” two weeks after he retired and is getting paid a million per year as a contractor while getting that huge severance from AT&T. [Reply]
Originally Posted by RunKC:
I work for a solutions provider so I talk to local and corporate LEC’s. This is pretty spot on unfortunately.
They do this shit all the time. In fact AT&T has made a change to their HR guidelines this year. If you are retirement eligible you have to leave by 12/31 this year or you won’t get retirement benefits. In other words you won’t get health insurance for the rest of your life if you’re on the books 1/1/22 due to a deal they made with their insurance provider to save money.
I know a lot of folks who are depressed and furious bc they were 1-3 years from retirement and have now lost it
The salaried employees there (staff/management) also lost a week of vacation this year and had their pension rates cut by about a third. The employees that were at the company over 20 years lost a week of vacation, but the employees under 10 gained a week. But the hourly employees kept their vacation, benefits, pay, etc because they are union employees and they can’t change that until their working contracts expire. It will get very ugly if they pull the same bs with the union represented employees. [Reply]
